New GOP group to work grassroots

Democrats are getting help this election from independent groups like ACT – America Coming Together – in mobilizing voters. Now, a start-up G-O-P group seeks to imitate their success. A former Iowa G-O-P insider who moved onto the national scene has returned to the state to launch a new republican project. Brian Kennedy has moved to Bettendorf, where he’s running “Campaign of One” which he describes as an effort to “bring the personal democracy movement to the republican party.”

He says this new project to bring “grassroots” politics back to the G-O-P is in response to “what’s been working for democrats lately.” Kennedy says his group has a lower budget than the newly-formed special interest groups on the democratic side.

The Campaign of One is a traditional political action committee which means there are limits on the level of contributions it can accept from individuals. Kennedy says he wouldn’t want the massive cash for commercials anyway. Kennedy says campaign commercials are flooding t-v and radio stations, and becoming less effective as people use their mute buttons, turn the channel or simply tune-out the message altogether. Kennedy grew up in Iowa City.

His older brother works on the other side of the aisle — for John Kerry’s campaign. Kennedy ran Terry Branstad’s 1994 campaign for Governor, he was Iowa G-O-P chairman in 1995 and 1996 and he worked on Lamar Alexander’s presidential campaign before moving on to work for John McCain.